Objectivist Round Up #104

Welcome to the July 9, 2009 edition of the Objectivist Round Up!  This blog carnival features posts by blog authors who are advocates of Objectivism.

Objectivism is the philosophy of the 20th-century novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand.  It is a comprehensive system of thought that identifies the basic axioms of the universe, and formulates and defends a reality-based theory of concepts, free will, morality, political liberty, history, and aesthetics.  In short, it is a philosophy for living life.

If you are new to Ayn Rand and wish to discover more about her philosophy, I recommend you start by reading her two greatest novels, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, followed by some non-fiction works such as Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal and Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.  The Ayn Rand Institute and the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights provide very relevant information and commentary, and a great introduction to Ayn Rand’s works can be found here.

In addition to items of general interest, this week’s posts feature reports from some of the “tea parties” that have been held across the country - in particular, the one in Boston, for which many of the bloggers happened to be present because of the 2009 Objectivist Conferences.  

So, with no further ado, I present this week’s Objectivist Round Up posts:

Andy presents “The Purpose Driven Life (Part 1)” at The Charlotte Capitalist, saying, “On Independence Data, Mega-pastor Rick Warren served up a nasty Dark Ages-Nazi Cocktail. I foresee a very bad hangover.”

Paul McKeever presents “Paul McKeever’s Minimal Maxims and Bon Arrows, volume 1, issue 6” at Paul McKeever, saying, “ignorance, need as a value, the nature of a free man, and the daily clamour for something to make the worthless feel valuable...who could ask for more?”

John Drake presents “History of Information Systems” posted at Try Reason!, saying, “Inspired by The Objectivist Standard's many great articles and their emphasis on history to demonstrate principles, I have been redesigning a core business class to focus on the historical lessons about information systems and how those principles can enhance business success. This post details my reasons and challenges with this redesign.”

Paul Hsieh presents “Photos from the Boston Tea Party” posted at NoodleFood, saying, “Lots of Objectivists turned out for the Boston Tea Party!”

Jason Crawford presents “The Cult of Need” posted at The Rational Egoist, saying, “First post on my new blog!”

Ari Armstrong presents “July 4 Tea Party Arvada Colorado” posted at FreeColorado.com, saying, “Listen to the concerns of those who attended the Arvada Tea Party July 4.”

Francis Luong presents “Celebrate Your Independence By Choosing To Read Atlas Shrugged” posted at Just Add Rationality.

Grant Jones presents “Manhattan, Kansas July 4th Tea Party” posted at The Dougout.

Jared Rhoads presents “Tea Party” posted at The Lucidicus Project, saying, “The July 4th Tea Party protests in Boston were a success. Here is a brief report, with photos.”

Edward Cline presents “Parsing Obama” posted at The Rule of Reason, saying, “To grasp the magnitude of the national debt Obama (and his Republican predecessor) has been ringing up, a comparison should help illustrate the task. Bernard Madoff’s robbery and defrauding investors of some $50 billion can be represented by the diameter of the solar system. The federal government, using the same scamming tactics, is amassing a debt about the diameter of the Milky Way galaxy. Madoff’s scheme can be measured in millions of miles. The federal government's, in almost limitless parsecs. That measurement ought to suffice to dramatize the scale of the hole he is deliberately digging for the country in his role as Community-Organizer-in-Chief.”

Stephen Bourque presents “The Reluctant Dictator” at One Reality, saying, “Barack Obama is not trying to lead a government takeover of one American industry after another.  We know this because he told us so himself.”

Michael Labeit presents “Midget, Midget, Midget, Midget, Midget....” posted at Coroner's Bureau, saying, “Midget, Midget, Midget, Midget, Midget....”

C. August presents "Alan Reynolds, the Answer to CAFE is NOT Taxes" posted at Titanic Deck Chairs. 

That’s it for this week.  Titanic Deck Chairs will host the carnival next week.  Please submit your blog articles for the next edition of the Objectivist Round Up using the carnival submission form.

UPDATES

I added a post from Titanic Deck Chairs.